Sanfic: Chile’s Quijote Films Co-Produces Alfredo Castro-Starrer ‘White on White’ (EXCLUSIVE)
By Anna Marie de la Fuente
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – SANTIAGO DE CHILE – Leading Chilean shingle Quijote Films is in production on the Alfredo Castro-toplined thriller “White on White,” set in Chile’s Tierra de Fuego and the Canary Islands, Spain. France’s La Pomme Hurlante and Germany’s Kindschafterfilm have also boarded as co-producers.
Quijote Films producer Giancarlo Nasi, who just returned from a grueling three-week location shoot in Tierra de Fuego where temperatures plummeted to minus 20 Celsius (- 4 Fahrenheit), is moving production next to the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands which also boasts other-worldly landscapes. This is Quijote Film’s first co-production with Spain. Tenerife-based El Viaje Prods. co-produces the drama set at the turn of the 19th century. Chilean-Spanish filmmaker Theo Court (“Ocaso”) is directing the film from a screenplay he co-penned with Samuel M. Delgado.
Castro (“From Afar”) plays a man commissioned to photograph the wedding of the owner of a large estate seized from indigenous people. When he arrives at this hostile environment, he discovers that the bride-to-be is underage and becomes obsessed with her.
Quijote Films’ next project, slated to shoot by the year’s end is “Sprinter,” the second film of Matias Rojas Valencia (“Raiz”).
Co-produced with Argentina, France, Germany and Colombia, “Sprinter” is a new take on the Colonia Dignidad scandal of the ‘90s where German ex-Nazi Paul Schaefer presided over a commune founded by German immigrants after World War II to celebrate their culture and language. In 40 years, Schaefer achieved near Messianic status, which allowed him to abuse the children under his care. “Sprinter,” Schaefer’s term for his young wards whom he encouraged to do sports, begins when a Chilean boy joins the community and escapes to reveal the atrocities committed in the commune.
Hanns Zischler (“Munich”) has come on board to play Schaeffer while casting is still underway for the young lead. Daniel Bruhl and Emma Watson starred in the 2015 thriller, “The Colony,” which also dwelled on the same theme.
Meanwhile, Nasi is taking Fernando Gussoni’s “Blanquita,” based on a true story about a single mom who uncovers the sexual abuse of foster children and brings down the powerful people involved, to Venice’s Production Bridge Market, where producers seek the final portion of financing for their projects.
All three projects are budgeted close to or at $1 million. Nasi credits the initial funding they received from Chile’s limited film fund, which only awards seven to nine projects a year with coin of up to $300,000 per film, for helping get their projects off the ground.
Nasi is also president of Chile’s Academy of Motion Pictures, which he founded some two months ago.
